Well, I think this is all very interesting. From my point of view, there's some really interesting stuff is going on -- separating spin from charge, for example, is a really inneresting idea, one I never thought could be thought about! And here someone has gone and done it. It is the kind of thing that could have major long-term consequences, if only one could figger out what they might be.

But these posts from Rapaire, I dunno -- I don't do that level of complexity, and I deeply suspect he doesn't either. I think he is driving shank's mare while making V-8 and Air Conditioning noises out of his mouth in order to impress the sleepy neighbors. "Put-put-put, I'm a Cadillac!"

I am not going to allow this to impress me. I won't, I won't!! ***BG***

Cats and sausages, now, and cabbages and kings, there's somethign that impresses me.

Aw, geez, Amos! I'm sure that you know damned good and well that a model recently introduced by Jaffe and Wilczek based on the quarks being dynamically bound into diquarks has been used to predict that the recently observed exotic baryons (pentaquarks) fall into a nearly ideally mixed combination of an octer and anti-decuplet representations of SU(3) flavor. And you must know that the model predicts two states with nucleon quantum numbers which have tentatively been identified with the N*(1440) and the N*(1710), and that an inequality relating the partial widths of these nucleon states in the N+nucleon channel to the width of the theta+ is derived for this model under the assuming ideal mixing and that the only significant exact SU(3) symmetry violations are the result of ideal mixing, threshold effects and the masses of pseudo-Goldstone bosons. This inequality is badly violated if the states in the multiplet are the N*(1440) and the N*(1710) and if the recent bounds extracted for the theta+ width are reliable. It is obvious, then, that the model appears to require a scenario with the existence of at least one presently unknown resonance with nucleon quantum numbers.

I gotta do everything around here myself! Isn't it clear from the foregoing that the "unknown resonance with ncleon quantum numbers" is our very own friend and colleague, Gluon? Sheesh!

The possibility of an anomalous coupling between the top and charm quarks and the gluon field...was explored in a model-independent way using an effective Lagrangian that is gauge invariant under a nonlinear realization of SU(3)C x SU(2)L x U(1)Y. Even for the current 200 pb-1 of integrated luminosity at the Fermilab Tevatron, the new physics scale that strongly modifies the coupling of t-c-g must be larger than about 2.5 TeV if no signal is found within a 3 sigma confidence limit. For 1 fb-1 of data, this constraint can be pushed up to 3.8 TeV.

Cat hair spinning down the drain. Now that's a killer. Daughter Moonglow insisted the cat needed a bath, and I did it in order to save the cat's life (who knows how a novice might react in the face of a cat reacting to water). What happens with said fur and odor-removal? Fluffy cat has three times as much fur to now distribute as loose radical hair, despite the amount clogging the drain, lining the towels, and stuck in the cat brush.

no more given to sudden changes or going off on their own than say, the fur on a cat

Obviously whoever came up with THIS comment has never lived with a cat. A cat's fur CONSTANTLY goes off on its own. Usually onto something with a contrasting colour. Especially if that something is not washable.

But Amos! That thing about spin and charge is very nice, but they did not in any way address fur on a bicycle! Paint, yes. I've seen the math, and they can even deal with paint on a cat. But they gave no consideration at all to fur on a bicycle OR a bicyle on a cat OR a cat on a bicyle OR a bicyle on fur.

Its still made-up quick bad stuff, Mag. Just because Molly Erwin made it up doesn't change anything.

But never mind -- chacun a son mauvais poete, I always say!

IN OTHER NEWS, LETTING THE SPIN LOOSE, A team of scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science has recently demonstrated conclusively that, in very specific circumstances, spin can become separated from charge and progress independently down a wire

Two properties of an electron - its spin and its charge - are generally thought to be inseparable, intrinsic characteristics, no more given to sudden changes or going off on their own than say, the fur on a cat or the paint on a bicycle. But a team of scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science has recently demonstrated conclusively that, in very specific circumstances, spin can become separated from charge and progress independently down a wire. Their findings appeared in a recent issue of Science.

Full story at http://www.physorg.com/news5107.html

SO THE NEXT TIME THE SPIN BIN IS FULL OUT IN DFW, YOU CAN JUST POUR 'EM ONTO THE WIRES AND SEND THEM TO CALIFORNIA. WE WON'T NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE!

My friend Sue used to be surnamed Erwin until she married Eastman, but she wasn't born with either surname. I don't think she is related to Molly, though. Especially since she (Sue) still lives (such as anyone can) in the Bay Area.

(She married Eastman so she wouldn't have to change the monograms on the towels.)

I can hear the heads shaking slowly. That poor guy. He's really gone off the edge, hasn't he? And he used to be really fun, too...shame, really. Devoured by an obsession with Victorian metre and imagery, lost all touch with reality. Really sad....

Lo, that the sweet decline of motherhood Has tumbled nations, made to dust The vaunted heights of cities and of law; By negligence of hearth, and care for war Or dull machines have men once good Left in their dusty trail, as all men must The truest kindness e'er they saw! To follow some ephemeral star.

Now, in benighted times of war and decline When every hand is turned to sullen gain How shall we turn the madd'ning mind, And steer the brutal beast to home again? How shall we turn the driven ship from war, And raise a mother's eyes, and heart once more?

I have been contributing really second-rate verses to these columns and attributing them to fictitious second-rate poets (with corny names and even cornier publishers and titles from corny days gone by) for some time. I am delighted, not to say flattered, to see this template of risible art has finally taken root in the rich BS around Mom's feet, where ANYTHING can blossom and most everything does.

All that to legitimatedly snag 8400. In case you didn't get enough saccharine in your diet today, here's a little more from Peerless Maggie:

Such a weight of mortal woe. Of the coffined form I need not tell, Of the dark and death-draped bier, Of the doleful dirge of the funeral knell, Of the grave where sleeps young Harry Bell, Or of weeping Maggie Peer. But the burial scene was wild with grief, And the gathering crowd was vast; And sympathy proffered a vain relief, As a pale young maiden, the mourner chief, Swooned over the dead like an autumn leaf Just shaken in winter's blast.

Lot's more of this back at the page where I found it (written sometime before 1890):

MAGGIE PEER. A TRUE TALE OF THE WAR.

The Bird of Peace has spread her wings Again in our glorious sky; But plaintive and sad is the song she sings, So sad that many a sigh it brings, And tears to many an eye. She has gained the prize, but at fearful cost, For she misses the true and the brave; She mourns for the loved forever lost— For the war-worn feet that forever crossed The portal of the grave.

If you've participated in that thread about Googling yourself then you know that there are other ways entirely that you can lump and sort yourself when searching for relatives or references. Amazing what that system can find (and why did so many other people give their children MY name?)

ah, but Amos, you expect me to use LOGIC! Aside from the fact that logic and I are not on speaking terms, I beleive the family brain cell has been loaned out to a young autistic child for training (of the brain cell) - not to mention I am suffering time lag from two days in the 16th century.

MM, as far as I know most civilizations of the Western Hemisphere use patronymic tags for defiing elationships, not given names. If you had to trace your family tree through everyone named "M", or perhaps Leo, just think how complicated your reunions would become!

1815, actually, Amos. Either August 1 or December 18; he was born exactly at the stroke of midnight to Wilhelm Keats and Maria Montoya Smythe-Gerstenbacher, Hereditary Electoress of Baden-Baden-Baden and first cousin to Prince Fred of Wien-Am-Rhein. His father, Wilhelm, Sr. (or "Big Billy" as he came to be known) was a Schweinlandwirt-in-training at the Smythe-Gerstenbacher castle (or, as they say in German, SchloÃŸ), SchloÃŸschluÃŸ, and a very, very, precocious lad indeed.

An interesting parallel construct, Doctor Rapaire; I had been assured it was Stuttgart, but Wien may be a more frank assessment. Your time line is perhaps more interesting, given that you have named the lady and the approximate date; however, my informant knew about the Viking hat.

I believe W Jr was born in 1817 or 1818, but the records are ambiguous; the original documents relating to his birth were destroyed during the retreat of 1919, mistakenly mixed in with a lot of confidential government papers being rapidly destroyed to prevent their falling into the hands of the advancing American troops.

Mom! Mom! Can you hear me mom? You nearly passed out! Here, take my hand, let me help you to the seat over here at the top! What were those boys thinking, not coming back to check on you instead of reading that silly poetry? Keats, Yeats, they all sound alike. . .

John Keats died without legitimate progeny. During his tour through the Germanies in 1800, however, he met a buxom young lady named Gretchen in a Bierstubbe in Wien-am-Rhine. One night, after boozing with "Boozy" Hawkes and other disreputables, they swapped: he gave her a tax deduction and she gave him a social disease. Wilhelm Keats was born some months after John left, and Wilhelm, jr. was born some years after that.

The sad result of a bleary-eyed biergarten run-in with a rather large blonde woman in Stuttgart, who wore a Viking hat. And little else. Keats was enough sheets to the wind that he believed he was fulfilling a Wagnerian Valkyrie archetype that night, but all that came of it became Wilhelm.

Thou still but half-baked bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Wheel and of the Eye, Rounded container , who canst thus express A turning tale more sweetly than our lie: What mottled glaze doth linger on thy shape 5 Burned in the kiln of art that dieth not, In temper fair, wedged from the bosky clay What men or gods your slipping line has wrought? What mad pursuit? What struggle to be free? What genius unemployed? What wheel of ecstasy?